Gas prices
A great editorial at NRO. And a great article at TCS.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Big profits for Big Oil... who cares? (And yes, I drive a car)
So there's a big ruckus because the annual earnings reports for the major oil producers are coming out, and it turns out that '05 was a good year for them: they made tens of billions of dollars in profits.
A lot of people are apparently upset at the news; they look at the prices we're paying at the pump, and then at these profit statements, and wonder how these companies have the gall to be charging the prices they are.
That's an understandable reaction, but it's a mistaken one. Why? Because gasoline and other petroleum products are commodities, and because of that, supply and demand can have a much more immediate effect on prices. Go back to September for a minute... when Katrina hit, the demand for gas skyrocketed, because people wanted to get the gas while they could (the supply was going to be pinched). The only way for oil companies and their products' distributors to ensure that they didn't run out of gasoline et al. was to raise prices. While that obviously meant we had to pay more, at least there was gasoline to be purchased! I remember reading about a service station here in the Sioux Falls area that was really lowballing their prices... they were consistently running out of gasoline! Let's face it: would you rather pay 50 to 100 cents more per gallon for gas, or not be able to get any gas because the supply is depleted? When demand is high, high prices are the only way to ensure that the supply of a commodity isn't exhausted. The fact is, what many of us saw as price gouging was simply the market ensuring an adequate supply of gasoline. (For a great primer of the reality of "price gouging", see this 2004 column by Thomas Sowell.)
That's one thing to remember. Here's another: if you consider the profit margins of these oil companies are making (profits as a percent of revenue), you'll find that the oil industry actually tends to lag behind other industries, in some cases by more than ten percent! (See this.)
ConocoPhillips has a webpage devoted to explaining oil profits; while you might consider the source biased (for obvious reasons), note that the data they use for their points is a matter of fact and is verifiable in the public record.
Remember, I'm not at all invested in the oil industry (well, apart from the few shares of a mutual fund I currently own in my 401(k)). Nor do I like having to pay $2+ for a gallon of gasoline. I simply think that while blaming "Big Oil" might be easy, it's not quite that simple.
FWIW.
So there's a big ruckus because the annual earnings reports for the major oil producers are coming out, and it turns out that '05 was a good year for them: they made tens of billions of dollars in profits.
A lot of people are apparently upset at the news; they look at the prices we're paying at the pump, and then at these profit statements, and wonder how these companies have the gall to be charging the prices they are.
That's an understandable reaction, but it's a mistaken one. Why? Because gasoline and other petroleum products are commodities, and because of that, supply and demand can have a much more immediate effect on prices. Go back to September for a minute... when Katrina hit, the demand for gas skyrocketed, because people wanted to get the gas while they could (the supply was going to be pinched). The only way for oil companies and their products' distributors to ensure that they didn't run out of gasoline et al. was to raise prices. While that obviously meant we had to pay more, at least there was gasoline to be purchased! I remember reading about a service station here in the Sioux Falls area that was really lowballing their prices... they were consistently running out of gasoline! Let's face it: would you rather pay 50 to 100 cents more per gallon for gas, or not be able to get any gas because the supply is depleted? When demand is high, high prices are the only way to ensure that the supply of a commodity isn't exhausted. The fact is, what many of us saw as price gouging was simply the market ensuring an adequate supply of gasoline. (For a great primer of the reality of "price gouging", see this 2004 column by Thomas Sowell.)
That's one thing to remember. Here's another: if you consider the profit margins of these oil companies are making (profits as a percent of revenue), you'll find that the oil industry actually tends to lag behind other industries, in some cases by more than ten percent! (See this.)
ConocoPhillips has a webpage devoted to explaining oil profits; while you might consider the source biased (for obvious reasons), note that the data they use for their points is a matter of fact and is verifiable in the public record.
Remember, I'm not at all invested in the oil industry (well, apart from the few shares of a mutual fund I currently own in my 401(k)). Nor do I like having to pay $2+ for a gallon of gasoline. I simply think that while blaming "Big Oil" might be easy, it's not quite that simple.
FWIW.
'Ideology' requires ideas
If you want to see some incoherent ranting about the vote for cloture in the Alito debate, go here (warning: adolescent cursing in abundance).
One commenter complained that the Democrats who voted for cloture are intellectually bankrupting their party.
That's funny, coming from a website/forum/blog whose founder has stated that he doesn't read much, and from a political movement that is far more interested in "action" than in "ideas". ("Impeach Bush!" and "Bush lied!" don't count as ideas.) As observers on both sides of the political spectrum have noted, conservatives (in general) seem far more interested in debating their first principles than do liberals (in general).
One final thing: I do have to note that many of the complaints which Kossacks are airing against their senators sound familiar to what many conservatives (including, on occasion, myself) say about their senators (minus the cursing): compromisers, turncoats, etc. etc. It appears that "true believers" on both sides are often less than happy about how "their guys" vote.
But like that's news.
If you want to see some incoherent ranting about the vote for cloture in the Alito debate, go here (warning: adolescent cursing in abundance).
One commenter complained that the Democrats who voted for cloture are intellectually bankrupting their party.
That's funny, coming from a website/forum/blog whose founder has stated that he doesn't read much, and from a political movement that is far more interested in "action" than in "ideas". ("Impeach Bush!" and "Bush lied!" don't count as ideas.) As observers on both sides of the political spectrum have noted, conservatives (in general) seem far more interested in debating their first principles than do liberals (in general).
One final thing: I do have to note that many of the complaints which Kossacks are airing against their senators sound familiar to what many conservatives (including, on occasion, myself) say about their senators (minus the cursing): compromisers, turncoats, etc. etc. It appears that "true believers" on both sides are often less than happy about how "their guys" vote.
But like that's news.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Cognitive dissonance on cognitive dissonance
Generally sensible Melanie manages to accuse those who oppose abortion while supporting the death penalty of cognitive dissonance while failing to recognize that opposing the death penalty while supporting abortion rights is no less cognitively dissonant.
Besides, there's that little difference of death row inmates having been found guilty of a capital crime, something which -- need I point it out? -- an embryonic human being is incapable of.
I note that as someone who sees virtually no use for the death penalty first-world nations like our own, but who recognizes that the death penality is not intrinsically evil, unlike abortion.
Generally sensible Melanie manages to accuse those who oppose abortion while supporting the death penalty of cognitive dissonance while failing to recognize that opposing the death penalty while supporting abortion rights is no less cognitively dissonant.
Besides, there's that little difference of death row inmates having been found guilty of a capital crime, something which -- need I point it out? -- an embryonic human being is incapable of.
I note that as someone who sees virtually no use for the death penalty first-world nations like our own, but who recognizes that the death penality is not intrinsically evil, unlike abortion.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Then and NOW
Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the other original feminists recognize what Gloria Steinem et al. do not: "Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women."
Fortunately, we have Feminists for Life around to remind us of what the first feminists stood for and believed.
Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the other original feminists recognize what Gloria Steinem et al. do not: "Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women."
Fortunately, we have Feminists for Life around to remind us of what the first feminists stood for and believed.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Outrageous!
Today I came across a blog that began this way:
Today I came across a blog that began this way:
- "Look, no one's for lynching," the speaker said to the citizens gathered around him in the town square. "Both sides can acknowledge that killing a black man is a bad thing. But can't we work together to work to eliminate the root causes of lynching, while still acknowledging that it is sometimes a necessity, and ought not to face a legal penalty?"
Monday, January 16, 2006
Benedict's first encyclical: Deus Caritas Est (God is Love)
We've known the title of the forthcoming encyclical for some time; we've also heard that it would be released in latter January, so as not to "compete" with the papal messages issued at the turn of the year.
The rumors now are that the encyclical will be released this Friday, January 20th. And today, we have what allegedly is the opening of the encylical:
We've known the title of the forthcoming encyclical for some time; we've also heard that it would be released in latter January, so as not to "compete" with the papal messages issued at the turn of the year.
The rumors now are that the encyclical will be released this Friday, January 20th. And today, we have what allegedly is the opening of the encylical:
- "God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him." These words from the letter of St. John express with singular clarity the center of the Christian faith, the Christian imagination of God, and also the vision of man and of his path which proceed from it.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Did you hear?
When President Clinton authorized a domestic surveillance program (Echelon) which was much more invasive than that which President Bush authorized, the NYTimes labelled it "necessary", as opposed to the grave threat to civil liberties which Bush's authorization apparently is.
And there is no double-standard or bias in the MSM? Please.
When President Clinton authorized a domestic surveillance program (Echelon) which was much more invasive than that which President Bush authorized, the NYTimes labelled it "necessary", as opposed to the grave threat to civil liberties which Bush's authorization apparently is.
And there is no double-standard or bias in the MSM? Please.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Recipients of NEA dues moneys
If there was ever any doubt about the political tendencies of the nation's largest teacher's union, their financial disclosure report clears it up.
Why teachers whose politics differ from union leadership put up with this is beyond me.
If there was ever any doubt about the political tendencies of the nation's largest teacher's union, their financial disclosure report clears it up.
Why teachers whose politics differ from union leadership put up with this is beyond me.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
They just. don't. get it.
The new issue of Newsweek has the stars of the movie The Da Vinci Code (Tom Hanks plays the lead [thanks, Tom]) on its cover. In the cover story, writer Devin Gordon refers to the "inflammatory, if well-traveled, conspiracy theory" of the novel: "that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a daughter, whose bloodline has survived into present-day Europe—and that the Catholic Church has been covering up the "truth" for 2,000 years."
What Mr. Gordon doesn't mention -- presumably because he doesn't know any better -- is that there is something a teeny bit more inflammatory about this fiction-posing-as-truth: that Jesus of Nazareth was not God.
No biggie, though.
Oh: please don't comment on how I'm being ridiculous because "it's just a novel". Brown believes the basic lines of the thesis, and his forward tries to pass the thesis off as true. And early on, he relentlessly asserted the factuality of his historical assertions (until experts and other informed commenters started demonstrating their utter falsity). Not only that, but plenty of people apparently think it really is true.
So: if that's your line, don't bother.
The new issue of Newsweek has the stars of the movie The Da Vinci Code (Tom Hanks plays the lead [thanks, Tom]) on its cover. In the cover story, writer Devin Gordon refers to the "inflammatory, if well-traveled, conspiracy theory" of the novel: "that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a daughter, whose bloodline has survived into present-day Europe—and that the Catholic Church has been covering up the "truth" for 2,000 years."
What Mr. Gordon doesn't mention -- presumably because he doesn't know any better -- is that there is something a teeny bit more inflammatory about this fiction-posing-as-truth: that Jesus of Nazareth was not God.
No biggie, though.
Oh: please don't comment on how I'm being ridiculous because "it's just a novel". Brown believes the basic lines of the thesis, and his forward tries to pass the thesis off as true. And early on, he relentlessly asserted the factuality of his historical assertions (until experts and other informed commenters started demonstrating their utter falsity). Not only that, but plenty of people apparently think it really is true.
So: if that's your line, don't bother.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
SSA and the priesthood
Robert Gotcher has a very interesting post on the issue of same-sex attraction and the priesthood in light of the recent Vatican instruction on the issue.
I highly recommend you check it out.
Robert Gotcher has a very interesting post on the issue of same-sex attraction and the priesthood in light of the recent Vatican instruction on the issue.
I highly recommend you check it out.
Jesuit, not Catholic
From the Boston College student newspaper:
From the Boston College student newspaper:
- The Issue: BC denies GLBT dance due to conflict with the church
What we think: BC should follow Jesuit values, not Catholic doctrine
Monday, December 05, 2005
How 'bout that
Turns out that the day after Thanksgiving is not the biggest shopping day of the year.
Hm.
HT: Bill Cork.
Turns out that the day after Thanksgiving is not the biggest shopping day of the year.
Hm.
HT: Bill Cork.
"Without Roots"
In case you haven't heard, that's the title of a forthcoming book in english translation written by Pope Benedict. The subtitle indicates the nature of the work: "Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam". It's due out on February 1st.
See here for more.
In case you haven't heard, that's the title of a forthcoming book in english translation written by Pope Benedict. The subtitle indicates the nature of the work: "Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam". It's due out on February 1st.
See here for more.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
The German takes a Pole, the Pole takes a French, hi-ho the derry-o...
Earlier today I received an email from a fellow Romano, Fr. David Pignato of the Diocese of Fall River. Fr. Pignato and I had classes together at the Angelicum, and among our professors was a polish priest, Fr. Wojciech Giertych, OP.
Fr. Giertych is an outstanding moral theologian. He is especially liked by his students for his Fundamental Moral Theology course, which I (unfortunately) did not "have" to take because I had a similar course in my undergrad years at Steubenville. In my case (and Fr. David's as well), I had Fr. Giertych for a seminar on Veritatis Splendor.
In the last few years, Fr. Giertych's teaching load at the Angelicum was lightened as he took on greater administrative responsibilities for the Dominican order.
Today, his load got a whole lot lighter.
In his email, Fr. David informed some of his fellow Angelicum alumni that Fr. Giertych was appointed today as the Theologian of the Papal Household! Fr. Giertych succeeds Fr. Georges Cottier, another Dominican who held the office since 1989.
As tonight's Zenit story explains (it'll be up at the website tomorrow), the role of the Theologian of the Papal Household is to give the nihil obstat to all the texts written by those who collaborate with the pope in the preparation of addresses, messages, etc. The office was first held by St. Dominic in the 13th century, and ever since then has been held by a Dominican.
This is exciting news for anyone who knows Fr. Giertych; let's make sure that he's in our prayers as he undertakes this new position.
St. Dominic, pray for us!
Earlier today I received an email from a fellow Romano, Fr. David Pignato of the Diocese of Fall River. Fr. Pignato and I had classes together at the Angelicum, and among our professors was a polish priest, Fr. Wojciech Giertych, OP.
Fr. Giertych is an outstanding moral theologian. He is especially liked by his students for his Fundamental Moral Theology course, which I (unfortunately) did not "have" to take because I had a similar course in my undergrad years at Steubenville. In my case (and Fr. David's as well), I had Fr. Giertych for a seminar on Veritatis Splendor.
In the last few years, Fr. Giertych's teaching load at the Angelicum was lightened as he took on greater administrative responsibilities for the Dominican order.
Today, his load got a whole lot lighter.
In his email, Fr. David informed some of his fellow Angelicum alumni that Fr. Giertych was appointed today as the Theologian of the Papal Household! Fr. Giertych succeeds Fr. Georges Cottier, another Dominican who held the office since 1989.
As tonight's Zenit story explains (it'll be up at the website tomorrow), the role of the Theologian of the Papal Household is to give the nihil obstat to all the texts written by those who collaborate with the pope in the preparation of addresses, messages, etc. The office was first held by St. Dominic in the 13th century, and ever since then has been held by a Dominican.
This is exciting news for anyone who knows Fr. Giertych; let's make sure that he's in our prayers as he undertakes this new position.
St. Dominic, pray for us!
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Leaving now or later?
Earlier this week, Democrat Jack Murtha (described by the AP as "one of Congress' most hawkish Democrats") made big news when he "called Thursday for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq."
Note that carefully: according to the AP (and other major media outlets), he called for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. And there was no correction of that description from Murtha or anyone else.
Yesterday, the Republicans said, "fine. You Democrats want a withdrawal? Let's put it to a vote." So they offered a resolution virtually identical to Murtha's and put it to a vote.
Guess what how the vote went: 403-3 in opposition.
Now, Democrats were up in arms because the resolution called for an immediate withdrawal, while Murtha apparently wanted a withdrawal when practicable.
So tell me: what's the difference between the latter view and the President's view? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yet Murtha made it clear that things aren't going right, and that we need to change direction and "redeploy now. This was (rightly) interpreted to mean that he was calling for an immediate withdrawal, because the only other possible interpretation of his words is virtually identical to the President's position.
In the end, the Democrats' bluff was called, and they voted against an immediate withdrawal, despite their unending pressers for weeks, it seems, calling for an immediate withdrawal.
So, what do the Democrats stand for when it comes to the war?
Earlier this week, Democrat Jack Murtha (described by the AP as "one of Congress' most hawkish Democrats") made big news when he "called Thursday for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq."
Note that carefully: according to the AP (and other major media outlets), he called for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. And there was no correction of that description from Murtha or anyone else.
Yesterday, the Republicans said, "fine. You Democrats want a withdrawal? Let's put it to a vote." So they offered a resolution virtually identical to Murtha's and put it to a vote.
Guess what how the vote went: 403-3 in opposition.
Now, Democrats were up in arms because the resolution called for an immediate withdrawal, while Murtha apparently wanted a withdrawal when practicable.
So tell me: what's the difference between the latter view and the President's view? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yet Murtha made it clear that things aren't going right, and that we need to change direction and "redeploy now. This was (rightly) interpreted to mean that he was calling for an immediate withdrawal, because the only other possible interpretation of his words is virtually identical to the President's position.
In the end, the Democrats' bluff was called, and they voted against an immediate withdrawal, despite their unending pressers for weeks, it seems, calling for an immediate withdrawal.
So, what do the Democrats stand for when it comes to the war?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)